Harrowing video film backs Afghan villagers' claims of carnage
caused by US troops

By Tom Coghlan in Kabul

08/09/08 "The
Times" -- - As
the doctor walks between rows of bodies, people lift funeral
shrouds to reveal the faces of children and babies, some with
severe head injuries.

Women are heard wailing in the background. “Oh God, this is just
a child,” shouts one villager. Another cries: “My mother, my
mother.”

The grainy video eight-minute footage, seen exclusively by The
Times, is the most compelling evidence to emerge of what may be
the biggest loss of civilian life during the Afghanistan war.

These are the images that have forced the Pentagon into a rare
U-turn. Until yesterday the US military had insisted that only
seven civilians were killed in Nawabad on the night of August
21.

Last night the Pentagon announced that it was
reopening the investigation in the light of
“emerging evidence” and was sending an officer to
Nawabad to review its previous inquiry. Villagers
and the UN insist that 92 were killed, including as
many as 60 children. Locals say that the US and
Afghan troops who came into the village looking for
a Taleban commander, with US air support, used
excessive force.

In the video scores of bodies are seen laid out in a
building that villagers say is used as a mosque; the
people were killed apparently during a combined
operation by US special forces and Afghan army
commandos in western Afghanistan. The film was shot
on a mobile phone by an Afghan doctor who arrived
the next morning.

Local people say that US forces bombed preparations
for a memorial ceremony for a tribal leader.
Residential compounds were levelled by US attack
helicopters, armed drones and a cannon-armed C130
Spectre gunship.

However, US commanders and Pentagon officials have
said repeatedly that seven civilians died alongside
35 Taleban militants during a legitimate combat
operation, the target of which was a meeting of
Taleban leaders.

The villagers’ accounts have been supported by
separate investigations conducted by the UN, by
Afghanistan’s leading human rights organisation and
by an Afghan government delegation. Two Afghan army
officers involved in the operation have been
dismissed.

The Pentagon’s original investigation concluded last
week that US forces used close air support after
coming under heavy fire during a mission to seize a
Taleban commander named Mullah Sadiq. They allege
that he died in the operation.

The US military said that its findings were
corroborated by an independent journalist embedded
with the US force. He was named as the Fox News
correspondent Oliver North, who came to prominence
in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair, when he was an army
colonel.

Sources close to one of the investigations said that
a video film was shot by Afghan officials the
morning after the attack. It corroborates the
doctor’s footage but has not been made public.

In a statement released on Saturday, the commander
of Nato forces, General David McKiernan, appeared to
back away from previous US accounts. He said:
“Following the recent operation in Azizabad,
Shindand district, we realise there is a large
discrepancy between the number of civilian
casualties reported by soldiers and local villagers.
I remain responsible to continue to try and account
for this disparity in numbers, but above all I want
to express our heartfelt sorrow to all families that
lost loved ones in this firefight.”

A Human Rights Watch report due to be published
today is highly critical of US and Nato forces in
Afghanistan for the number of civilians killed in
airstrikes. It gives warning that repeated instances
of Western forces killing Afghan civilians have led
to a collapse in popular support for the
international presence.

Taking what it says are the most conservative
figures available, Human Rights Watch has calculated
that civilian deaths as a result of Western
airstrikes tripled between 2006 and 2007 to 321. In
the first seven months of this year the figure was
119. In the same period, 367 civilian deaths were
attributed to Taleban attacks. It accuses US
officials of routinely denying reports of civilian
deaths.

Maulavi Gul Ahmad, an Afghan MP who was part of a
government delegation that investigated the Nawabad
attack, told The Times: “We are not only blaming
America – this is destroying the reputation of the
international community and undermining their
presence in Afghanistan.”

Other Afghan investigators alleged that US forces
had been duped into attacking the village by tribal
figures involved in a local feud.

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan

December 2001
US aircraft attack a convoy taking tribal leaders to
the inauguration of new Afghan Government. About 60
killed; US claims al-Qaeda leaders among them

July 2002
46 die, many from same family, when a wedding party
in Uruzgan province is bombed in error

October 26, 2006
Between 40 and 85 civilians are killed in airstrikes
and mortar bombardments around the settlement of
Zangawat in Kandahar province

March 2007
19 people are killed and 50 wounded when US Marine
Special Forces fire on civilians after a suicide
attack in Shinwar, eastern Afghanistan. The US
military apologises and pays compensation to the
families

July 6, 2008
47 civilians, including 39 women and children
attending a wedding party, are killed by a US
airstrike in Nangarhar province, an Afghan
government investigating team claims

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